MI Abaga: The first installment of Martell Cypher came 8 months ago to a bit of a mixed reception. A segment of hip hop and rap music lovers rated it highly, another segment didn’t rate it that highly. However, what everyone can agree on is that it stirred attention towards hip hop for a few moments at the time. 

On Monday September 9, the second installment of the Cypher came out and it has again gotten attention from a lot of people. This time around, opinions are not as divided. It also came a few weeks after there was a conversation about who the best rapper in (Africa) country is. 

MI Abaga is still laying a strong claim to the throne, but what this new cypher proves is that throne is being fiercely eyed, except no rapper is willing to fight for it that much until there’s another round of conversation about hip-hop. 

AQ still feels the need to show he’s skilled

The rapper has been kicking the game consistently for the past 7 years. His last two albums also reached critical acclaim. However, the rapper still feels the need to prove his adeptness on the microphone every time he gets to handle it. Martell Cypher 2 is one of his most recent example. AQ “deliberately” rapped offbeat on his intro lines on the cypher and this sort of created a not so sweet listener experience, for anyone who paid proper attention to his verse. He managed to ƙnock off to have a fire round subsequently, but it is not a delightful thing to notice. That aside, AQ completely owned the cypher, even though he did so with fierce competition for MI Abaga who showed why he’s still a force in the rap game.

MI Abaga is chairman and it’s not hard to tell

The way the rapper rides on the beat, you get the impression that it was made solely for him. MI was the most comfortable artist rapping on the cypher. He was self-assured, the kind one gets only from having done the same thing over and over again for many years. He even went further to state categorically, how much of a juggernaut he is when he wanted to rap. When the rapper said no only a few rappers can put him to task on their best days, he knew what he was saying and he proved it again. Thankfully, his round was the last and it left a lasting memory on the minds of listeners. 

Hip-hop in Nigeria needs this occasional cypher to be in the conversation

This genre is dead in Nigeria and that’s a fact. The genre is not capable of weaving itself into regular conversations about music in the country. None of the active players in Nigerian hip-hop can attract proper media mileage. 

In the last two years, the only time Nigerian hip hop manages to get attention is when there’s a beef and their beef are not even solid enough to get the attention of mainstream media. But a viable counterargument is that the beef (thanks to Blaqbonez) seemed to wake up the rappers in the country a bit. Aside from that, nothing else. 

Cyphers can put hip-hop in people’s mouth again

It managed to be in people’s mouth last year following MI’s release of “Fix Up”. But that wasn’t a sustainable way to curry attention. Judging by audience reception, cyphers seem to be the way to go. If the cyphers keep coming, Martell or not, hip hop might begin to find its way into people’s mouths again. What will make the country’s hiphop viable again is when it becomes worthy of being talked about. The scene has lost this in the last decade, leading to its proper relegation in the minds of music lovers all over the country. 

The Martell Cypher has racked up over 30k views on YouTube since it dropped. It pulled up around 60k views in the first week for its first installment released last year. This is a decent outing and proponents of this genre in Nigeria must try to find interesting ways to bring the culture back to the forefront, even if it’s through beef, steady one, spin an interesting story around it and make it work.

Watch the Martell Cypher below: